Shadow The Deadly Touch

The Deadly Touch

Chapter 1

The Shadow glided the streets invisibly on his way to The Cobalt Club so that his alter ego Stephen Cranston could meet his partner Peter Parker for dinner. There was no real need for such stealth tonight; still, even The Shadow needed practice to keep his skills sharp.  Besides, he enjoyed the sense of peace and solitude that came from being unseen. He also enjoyed in a macabre way the headlights of a passing car throwing the shadow of a man in a slouch hat and cloak against the wall.

Passing one of the countless dark alleyways of New York City, his sharp ears picked up at a sound. It was almost non-existent, but it was like a beacon to the ears of the dark vigilante. 

Soft crying was coming from the dark alley.

Sweeping into the alleyway, his eyes picking up every detail, he found the source of the sobbing. An old woman—grimy, dishevelled, clearly homeless—was clutching her hands against the air and weeping to herself. 

The Shadow took a second to allow his telepathic senses to pick up whatever details her troubled mind was screaming out in pain, then swirled into visibility beside her.  "**_Anna Costales…what's wrong?_**"

She was surprised to hear a stranger's voice ask a concerned question, but she looked up at him and answered honestly. "The gangs in this part of town are always attacking us, they said they would take my locket but I didn't believe them. They know the police wouldn't care. It was all I had of my husband…" She trailed off into tears again.

The Shadow wondered why she didn't recoil from his masked face like most people did. Then he looked into her eyes and realised why.

The old woman was blind.

****

**_"Why would they steal a locket?"_** asked The Shadow, mostly to himself.

"It is made of gold. It is very valuable. My husband told me to sell it but I never could. It was from him." She sobbed again.

The Shadow was disgusted, and it wasn't just the smell of the alley. He leaned toward the woman again. **_"Where can I find these men?"_**

"There's an open-air drug market around the corner."  She almost laughed as she sobbed.  "They think a blind old woman doesn't know about such things.  Usually they ignore Crazy Anna as she shuffles by.  I have to go by there when I just want to visit my husband.  But they won't let you sleep in a graveyard.  So I have to come back here."  Her shoulders shook with the pain and frustration she felt.  "Why didn't they just leave me alone tonight?"

The Shadow noticed the grimy, dilapidated cardboard box only five feet from where Anna had fallen.  Now what had happened to her was obvious, and disgusting.  She'd been robbed only a few steps from her one safe refuge in her world of horrors.  He scooped her into his arms and gently carried her the last few steps to her box home.

"Thank you," she whispered, recognizing the touch of the paper walls and dirty rags instantly.

**_"No, thank you,"_** he said soothingly. **_"Sleep now."_**

The old woman fell into the pile of filthy cloth and slept, the trailing away of The Shadow's laugh unheard by anyone.

***

The Shadow looked down another alleyway about half a mile from where he met the woman. The feeling in this alley was different, the sounds coming from it suggested a lot of drinking and loud music was involved. Well The Shadow was there to add his own brand of fun.

A sibilant laugh followed him down the alley.

***

The gang was having a party and counting the day's pickings, a small fire burned, fuelled by broken furniture, the music was loud and the laughter was louder, as the men traded stories of the day.

At first nobody noticed the sound, it was simply too subtle to hear over the noise. But it grew and echoed until several men looked up from their discussion and strained their ears. One of them turned off the music and everyone stopped what they were doing, for with the music gone, they heard all it too clearly.

It was laughter, sinister, mocking and coming from all directions.

A chill filled the alley, an under lying sense of dread and terror, as the shadows on the wall seemed to turn from stationary to predatory.

A sound of a clearing throat rolled through the alley and every man turned to see what it was. Silhouetted against the fire was a form of pure black, but nobody could tell if it was a human being. Everyone just watched, arrested by their fear. And then the demon spoke.

**_"Earlier this evening I discovered that someone in my city committed an atrocity." _**he said slowly. **_"Cowards I think. Now, this is the third gang I have visited tonight. Perhaps you heard the sirens. I want to know who these particular jackals were."_**

Everyone stole a quick glance at a group of 5 men who were sticking together. The Shadow smiled and looked over at them. The 5 men turned white and then one of them turned red. "You dirty rats!" he screamed.

The Shadow laughed louder and looked back at the rest of the gang. **_"Go away."_** He said simply and the rest of the gang ran as fast as they could away from the scene.

With them gone The Shadow turned back to the remaining 5. **_"You have something that does not belong to you." _**He thought that over and amended his statement. **_"In fact, I suspect that you have a great many things that do not belong to you. But lets start with a gold locket."_**

***

The old woman woke up in a warm room; her nose told her that there was a delicious meal on a nearby table. She felt fresh new clothes against her skin and a soft bed beneath her.

**_"Good Morning."_**

She knew that voice. It was the man who had come to her in the alley. "Who are you?" she said in wonder.

**_"Just a good Samaritan."_** He replied and she could hear the smile in his voice.

"Where am I?"

**_"A care home."_**

"I can't afford this." She said, still taking deep whiffs of the meal.

**_"You can now."_** Said the voice. Someone put the tray on her lap and a spoon in her hand. **_"Some friends of mine are going to take care of you. Oh, and this belongs to you."_** She felt a strong grip put something in her hand, it was oval shaped and had a chain. She knew immediately what it was. Her locket.

"Thank you!" she said dissolving into tears of joy. There was no answer. "Are you still there?"

But there was no answer.

Chapter 2

Dr. Chance LeBrue was working the late shift, his coffee cup clicked against his bright girasol ring. He was supposed to go home 2 hours ago, but 3 bodies had come into the morgue that night, all dying from some mysterious illness. 

His area of expertise was disease, but this one had him stumped. He tried every test he could think of, but they all came up negative. So finally, he had tried the electron microscope to see if he could at least isolate this odd strain.

He had the machine set to the highest magnification, but so far he had found nothing. He refocused the screen yet again and started a pattern matching program on his computer, hoping to find anything close in the vast forensic databases available.

The computer finally found a close pattern match and displayed details for him.

After looking at the comparisons for about 5 minutes, he realised why he had never seen anything like it before. It was artificial! This thing, this tool of murder, this obscenity had been made deliberately.

The numerous molecules, all of them joined together came from several things, molecules from several kinds of gases, so it was airborne, cells of different kinds of elements, so it could be adapted to pass through liquids and foods as well. Looking at it, he thought it might have been anthrax; but it had properties of AIDS. That would prevent the usual antibiotics and treatments wouldn't help.

As he thought that over, he realised that this was potentially the most deadly disease he had ever seen. Someone had engineered this germ. Someone had deliberately created the perfect biological weapon.

Trying to figure out why, or at least where, these men had been infected, he pulled over their files. They were all homeless street people. People who wouldn't be missed, thought LeBrue. The thought made him uneasy.

Tapping at the computer he did some math to figure out just how bad this bacterium was.

0% contagious.  That was good, but that meant that each person would have to be infected deliberately.

100% terminal. That was bad.  That was VERY bad.

Grabbing the nearest pad and pen, he began frantically writing. The Shadow would want to know about this. Looking at the freezers that held the 3 men, he prayed that it would stop with them.

***

"It's very pretty Doc, but what are we looking at?" asked Spiderman from his perch on the ceiling.

The Shadow, Spiderman and Doctor LeBrue were at the morgue, looking at the screen, which was hooked up to the microscope. The bacteria was magnified on the screen.  LeBrue gestured at the screen with a laser pointer.  "This is a bacteria which I found in three bodies which came I today. I did not recognize it, so I used the electron scope to magnify it and had my computers do some pattern matching.  This is what I found."

**_"It almost looks like anthrax,"_** The Shadow observed.

The men all gave a convulsive shudder at the mention of that word. The mood in the room turned darker.

"That's why I called you," said LeBrue. "This IS the anthrax bacteria, but it has been changed.  It has properties of AIDS.  It settles into the bone marrow and destroys it quickly, then multiplies quickly and gets circulated through the blood, causing systemic infection.  And because it destroys the bone marrow, it kills the immune system, so antibiotics are useless. Also, the method of infection appears to not be inhalation.  There are telltale lesions on the skin."

Spiderman drew back slightly   "I thought only inhaled anthrax was fatal."

"Another change," said LeBrue grimly. 

**_"Do you think the anthrax bacteria has mutated?"_** asked The Shadow.

LeBrue shook his head.  "This kind of wholesale mutation is completely unprecedented in the wild.  Someone engineered this."

"Did they engineer contagiousness into it, too?" Spiderman wondered.

"No, thank God.  It is still non-contagious. But that's actually bad news.  You can't catch it from someone else, so all these men were deliberately infected."

"Deliberately?"  Spiderman was alarmed. "This sounds like trouble."

**_"O.K., Doc,"_** The Shadow said with a sigh. **_"I'm going to need every bit of info you have on this bacteria, and the 3 victims."_**

Doctor LeBrue handed him a folder before The Shadow was finished speaking.

Nice to have anticipatory agents.  The Shadow gave a nod of thanks.  **_"We'll be in touch."_**

A #thwapp# sound drew LeBrue's gaze to the ceiling, and he caught just a glimpse of Spiderman disappearing out the window on the end of a web line. The Doctor looked back at The Shadow, but the cloaked man had already vanished. A whispered laugh echoing behind him.

Chapter 3

"Bingo," said Stephen in a singsong voice.

Peter jumped up from his seat and walked quickly over to his partner. "We have a match?"

The 2 men were sitting in the Sanctum, studying one of the many reports sent by Burbank. The Shadow had access to databases beyond the reach of even the finest forensic databases available, and what he didn't have, he could get from others.  An hour ago, the men had sent a copy of Dr. LeBrue's findings of the bacteria, and a copy of its picture, through Burbank to every Chemist, Doctor and Mortician in the Shadow network, scouring the planet for a match.

And now they had one.

Stephen's eyes grew wide as he read the report from a maintenance worker who was the caretaker of the microscope records for a major medical facility. "You're not going to believe this! It was created HERE in town. New York Medical Research Centre."

"Here?"  Peter was stunned. "Why the Hell would they do this?"

"To make a cure," Stephen said simply.  "You need to have a sample of the disease in order to create an effective cure."

"Looks like someone had other plans."

"Yep. I guess we should check it out."  Stephen frowned.  "But we need more than just records.  And I have nobody on the inside that can give us access to what I REALLY need—the biological agents themselves."

Peter looked thoughtful for a moment, then grinned.  "That's O.K.  Because I do."

***

Later that day at New York Medical Research Centre, a thin man with wire rim glasses and thinning hair met the 2 men at the entrance.  "Peter Parker!" shouted the man with a huge grin as he saw the men approach.

"Eric Hesper!" shouted back Peter.

The two men embraced quickly and gave each other warm hugs and backslaps.  "God bless America, what's it been—two years?" Eric asked.

"At least," Peter replied.  "But they look like they've been good to you."

"That they have.  You'd love this place.  Remember the stuff we used to do in Bio-Chem class?"

"The stuff we almost got thrown out of school for?"

"Yeah.  Now imagine getting paid to do that all day long."

"You lucky dog."  He turned to his partner.  "Dr. Eric Hesper, my partner, Stephen Cranston.  Stephen writes all the words to go with my pictures."

Eric stuck out his right hand.  "Pleasure."

"Likewise."  Stephen accepted the handshake.

The wind whipping around the skyscrapers caught all the men off-guard.  "Hey, let's continue this conversation inside," Eric offered.

"Good idea," Peter replied, and the three of them entered the building.

Eric took them to the front desk to get them visitor passes.  Stephen hung back slightly, taking in the detail of the place.  He made mental notes of every camera, every guard position, every office with a window overlooking the lobby, every elevator, every exit sign.  Such details could be important later.

Eric handed the two men their badges.   "So anyway, you two are reporters, so you obviously have a reason for coming."

"Yes, indeed.  The Classic has assigned us to write a story about anthrax. Recent events have made the public very interested in it. So we decided to come here, get some info on the thing, and the work to find cures of those kinds of diseases."  Stephen said that with almost surreal smoothness, perfectly selling the cover story they worked out earlier.  It didn't hurt that The Shadow, with just a little extra silent suggestion, could make almost any story sound believable, but right now Stephen was holding back his telepathy, trying to get by with just his charm and sincere smile.

"Well," said Eric, buying the story hook, line, and sinker, "I think it's safe to say we're probably even more interested in those very things than your readers are, if that's possible.  Would you like to see our work on some of these diseases?"

"Well, if it's not too much to ask…could you show us where the anthrax cultures are stored?" Peter asked.

Eric gave an easy smile.  "Sure, follow me."

The men marched through some hallways, seemingly going endlessly down flights of stairs, occasionally pausing so that Eric could enter an access code.

Finally, they reached their destination, a huge clean room.  Eric opened a large locker and handed the men some full body biohazard suits, including plastic lining gloves and shoe covers to go on before the clean suits.  "You'll have to wear these," said Eric. "We'll be handling the cultures, so we'll also need to go through decontamination."

Stephen raised an eyebrow.  "Sounds dangerous."

"It can be.  That's why we wear these."  He gestured to a directions sheet on the wall for the proper fitting of biohazard gear, and the three men set about changing their clothes.

Entering a small room, massive air jets shot out at them from all sides, ending the decontamination procedure.

The suited men moved into a large room, scrubbed spotless.  It looked almost like a morgue. Small freezer cabinets lined the walls.

"The bacteria samples are kept in cold storage.  Each freezer is hermetically sealed and in case of break in or a broken seal, the cabinets all flash-heat to 500°F as insurance against theft. That's why we check all the freezers every 3 days for missing samples, and why we also have a panic button over there." He directed their attention to a large red button on the wall. "There a lot of unscrupulous types that would love to get a hold of some of these." 

"Like anthrax?" said Peter.

"Right. We have several types of anthrax here, including some engineered and mutated forms, just in case anyone starts experimenting. They are in this freezer here."  Eric punched numbers into a large keypad by the door and flicked a switch.

"How do you do that with these gloves on?" Peter asked.  The sensitive touch and minute hooks in his skin that enabled him to scale walls and grip almost any surface were useless through the thick material, and he felt as if his hands were encased in paraffin and wrapped in lead.

"You get used to it," Eric replied.  "It's another good theft deterrent, though a real pain sometimes.  When we really need a good grip on something, there are sticky pads built into the gloves."  He held up his palm.  "We just peel back the covering on the tips of the fingers, and voila."

"Might be nice to have in real life," Stephen observed with a hint of a smile at Peter.

Peter grimaced.  He was sure Stephen was enjoying this small sense of seeing him powerless.  They'd made an agreement before they went in that there was to be a minimum of The Shadow's hypnotic manipulation applied, and on some small level, Peter just knew the gloves were Stephen's way of getting even.

The freezer Eric had chosen opened with a vacuum seal hiss. The cabinet held a drawer that Stephen helped him pull out. On the drawer were rows of Petri dishes, each with a tight seal over the top.

"All the seals are airtight…" Eric continued as he came over, but then he stopped.  He stared hard at the drawer and then in the back of the freezer, then frantically at the floor. The reason was obvious.

One of the cultures was missing.

Eric quickly searched the drawer.  He ran his hands along the edge of the seams, shifted dishes around, and even got on his knees to search the area around the drawer just in case it had dropped out.

As Eric searched frantically for the small dish, Stephen looked closely at the drawer itself. In place of the dish, up against the wall of the drawer, was a small pin or needle. Its point was sticking out into the drawer.

Before he could see what it was, Eric started to breathe hard. He was clutching at his chest.

"Eric? Are you O.K.?" asked Peter worriedly.

Eric didn't answer. He collapsed, Peter catching him as he fell.

Stephen looked through the faceplate. Eric's lips were tinged blue.

"Looks like a heart attack!" Stephen snapped, hitting the panic button. "Move!"

The two men picked up Eric's almost lifeless form and carried him swiftly into the airlock adjoining the changing area. The air jets fired automatically, decontaminating the men.

"Come on, come on," urged Peter, worried for his friend. 

The air jets stopped and the men carried him out. A mix of paramedics and security guards were waiting with a stretcher as co-workers hurriedly pulled off his heavy clean suit and bagged it for further decontamination.

Eric gripped Peter's arm as they hustled down the hall toward the exit. "Peter, you have to find that culture! You're a reporter, you must have contacts. That thing could decimate humanity! You have to find it!" the paramedics pulled ahead with the stretcher and the two heroes were left behind.

"So now we know," said Peter quietly. "What's next?"

"We find out who got to the thing first," Stephen replied, trying to keep his expression even so that others around didn't know how bad the situation was becoming.

"Any clues?"

Stephen looked around for a moment.  "Let's discuss this outside."

By the time they were out the door, Moe Shrevnitz was already pulling up to the curb.

The two men got into the cab.  "To The Sanctum," Stephen ordered.

"You got it."  Shrevnitz pulled away from the building and out into busy mid-day traffic.

"So, what clue did you find that you didn't want to discuss in front of all those security cameras?" Peter guessed.

Stephen showed something wrapped up in the wadded rubber glove in his hand.

Peter's eyes widened.  "Where did you get that?  More importantly, HOW did you get that?"

"It was in the drawer, in place of the dish.  Those sticky pads come in handy."

"Looks like a pin."

"Bet you money it had poison on it, too."

Peter frowned.  "Let me guess.  Some esoteric engineered poison whose symptomology looks just like a heart attack."

Stephen nodded grimly.

The 2 of them looked at the engraving on the pin. It simply said: N12

Chapter 4

The Shadow swept the hallways, invisible in the darkness. His goal was fixed in his mind and he followed it with unmatched determination. He knew where he was going, freezing briefly every now and then to avoid being noticed by a janitor working the night shift. 

After a few minutes, he had reached the security records room, eased a skeleton key into the lock, and punched in the security code that he had seen the janitor enter earlier, hoping it wasn't tied to a specific key but was a generic one for cleaning crews and other passkey holders, since it didn't seem to be a terribly difficult or complex number string.

He was right.  As The Shadow always was.

Sweeping into the room, he started searching the reams of security footage for the camera he needed, the one for the clean room. There were days worth of tape. Searching for the last 3 days worth of footage, he pulled over a VCR used for spot checks on the tapes.

Fast-forwarding through all the film, he found what he wanted in a little under half an hour. He was getting worried about waiting there for so long when he found it. It was a film from a late night 2 days ago, and on the screen, a man was marching down the hallways. His face was unfamiliar. The Shadow left the tape running and went over to the records computer. He pulled up the employee files. He ran a search for men who fit the description of the man on the screen, who had access to the clean room.

There were no matches.

Unwilling to wait any longer than that, The Shadow snatched the tape, closed down the computer and headed for the door, a soundless mirth echoing behind him.

It was the laugh of The Shadow.

***

"That's our man," said Stephen to his partner, holding up a picture in his hand.

The message and the photo had gone to Burbank, who was searching every photo record in America for his face. 

"Who is he?" asked Peter.

"I don't know. Burbank is doing his thing as we speak." Even as the words were coming from his mouth, the buzzer sounded. Stephen walked over to the radio and spoke in the commanding voice of The Shadow. "Report."

"The man does not match any photo record in the country. At least none that we have access to," came the efficient voice of Burbank.

Stephen was amazed. Who was this man? "Understood. Keep me informed."

Peter and Stephen just looked at each other for a while, each turning the problem over in their heads. Finally Stephen spoke. "Pete, its getting late, why don't you turn in?"

Peter nodded and picked up his jacket. When he turned to leave he saw his partner was sitting in his chair, with an inscrutable look on his face and a bottle of cognac at his side.

Peter knew that look. "You're gonna be here all night thinking on this, aren't you?"

Stephen didn't answer.

Peter sighed, knowing he could do nothing about it.  "All right. See you tomorrow."

With that, Peter left, barely acknowledged by the silent thinker behind him.

***

It was the next morning and as Peter came down the stairs into The Sanctum, he knew his partner must have come up with something, as he was getting ready to leave.

"Ah, good," Stephen smiled.  "You're here.  Come with me."

"So, what's the deal?" Peter asked the man who was passing him up the stairs.

Stephen paused and threw his partner a sheepish look. "I don't have a clue."

That stunned Peter. Stephen always figured these things out. "Then where are we going?"

"To talk to someone who might." Stephen gave a low cackle behind him.

***

Soon after, Moe's cab pulled up at Cranston Manor.

Victor Cranston, the man who wore the mask of the Shadow for 30 years, and Stephen's uncle, met them at the door.  "Hello, boys." He beamed at them, looking like a man half his age. "You're looking well. So what can I do for you?"

"We need your help," said the young men as one. 

***

2 hours later, in the study, with a roaring fire and coffee and pastries all around, Stephen and Peter had told their story, with the elder Cranston asking the odd question now and then.

"Burbank could find nothing on this man, not even a name," said Peter, handing over his picture.

"And the only clue we have about him is this pin," finished Stephen, handing the bag containing the pin to his uncle.  "It's engraved N12."

Victor Cranston almost dropped the two items. "N12?"

"Yes," said Stephen. "Why? What does that mean?"

Victor did not answer straight away. He looked at the pin for a long moment.  "Have Burbank expand his search to include members of government organisations and agencies. Search all files going back 30 years. Including the closed files. Have him call you back here." He was indicating the phone on a nearby table.

Stephen, watching his uncle's face carefully, moved over to the phone, dialled Burbank, and relayed the instructions.  After hanging up, he turned back to Victor. "Uncle, I'd sure love to know where you're going with this."

"Somewhere very dark," said Victor calmly. "But I'd rather not say more until I know I'm right."

Stephen knew just how often his uncle was wrong.

The phone rang again just then.

"Nice to see Burbank is keeping his typical efficiency," laughed Victor.

Stephen smiled and answered the phone, writing down the notes that Burbank dictated. Once the call was over, he turned back to the 2 eager men behind him.  "His name is Morgan Roche. A top level CIA field agent."

"Why didn't Burbank find him in the first search?" asked Peter, looking down at the photo of the newly named man.

Stephen gave his uncle a suspicious look.  "Well, Burbank thought that he couldn't be the one we're looking for, seeing as he has been dead for 12 years."

Peter's eyebrows almost hit the ceiling. Victor however, simply nodded sadly.

"You knew. How?" demanded Stephen in his usual subtle way.

Victor held up the bag.  "When I was with Army Intelligence in Korea, I heard about a vigilante group of rogue agents from FBI, CIA, and NSA. People who figured that the government was being too soft and decided to take government policy into their own hands. Very powerful people, who knew almost everything and could get to almost everyone. Nobody talked about it much; the official line was that it did not exist. But when the Cold War started, people talked about them again, saying that they were using their own resources to play both sides against each other. When I became The Shadow, I began to see signs of their work almost everywhere. Mob ties, crooked government officials, corrupt businessmen. But they never came out in the open like this. So I tried to find them. One person in the network managed to tell me just the name of the secret society: The Network of Twelve. He said they were called that because there were twelve agents that started the network. He had a pin on him with this same logo."  He tossed the pin onto the table.  "As you might suspect, the pin has a hollow tip.  Put a fine-grained poison in it and leave it where someone will sit on it, brush up against it…"

"…or prick their fingers on it running them through a drawer looking for something," Peter realized.

Victor nodded.  "That same agent disappeared the next day.  I haven't heard from him since."

The mood in the room turned darker as he spoke. They all stole glances at the pin sitting in the table. N12. Finally, Peter gave voice to the question that they had all been wondering. "What do they want with the anthrax?"

Even the other 2 men in the room, who both had worn the mask of The Shadow, did not have an answer for him.

After a long silence, Stephen spoke. "O.K., different approach.  Let's step away from the 'what' for a second.  Where do we find them?"

Victor gave his nephew a disbelieving look. "You're going after them?"

"Damn straight. There's only room for one secret society in this town—and that's going to be mine!" 

"And they'll be even harder to find than yours," Victor pointed out.

"So, where do we start?" Peter asked.

"Well…" Victor looked thoughtful.  "I do know some places that could help."

Chapter 5

"Conspiracy nut websites?" blurted out Peter.

The men were in Moe's cab again, on their way to the Sanctum. But this time, there was one distinct difference. Victor was coming with them.

Victor was thrilled to be back in the action again; it was almost like he never left. "Hello, Moe. You're looking well."

Moe was beaming to have the previous Shadow back in the game too. "You too, boss.  Out of retirement for this one?"

"Yes, indeed. My nephew needs my help."

Stephen gave a slightly embarrassed grin. 

Victor decided to answer Peter's incredulous question. "Yes Peter, conspiracy nut websites.  You would be surprised what they can come up with."

It took all Peter had not to roll his eyes.  "No, I wouldn't.  We're talking Weekly World News territory, right?  Elvis is an alien, Bigfoot fathered my love child, that sort of thing?"

"I found some words about you in some of them too," smirked Victor.  "I check them all regularly."

Peter murmured an aside to Stephen. "Your uncle has some really weird hobbies."

"So do we," answered Stephen instantly.

***

Once back in the Sanctum, Victor, after pausing to look over the Sanctum lovingly for a moment and commenting on how it looked good for over 70 years old, took a seat in one of the old familiar leather armchairs and pulled his laptop computer out of his briefcase. "My account still here?" he asked, plugging his computer in and finding an open spot on the network hub for his network cable.

"Of course," Stephen responded.

Victor's fingers tapped out a string of characters, and he was soon logged into the Sanctum's powerful computer.  "O.K.," he said, exporting a section of his browser's bookmark list into a text file on the master server.  "Here we go.  This should be a good place to start."

Peter was already wondering what in the world they were about to get into as he read some of the website names off the file on Victor's small screen.  "You've got to be kidding."

"No, not at all.  You want to know about secret societies?"  He gestured over the URL list.  "They're buried in here.  Our job, gentlemen, is to separate the wheat from the chaff."

Peter gave a glance to Stephen.  "This is why we wanted to be reporters, right?"

Stephen smiled.  "That's the spirit."

The two men retrieved their laptops, plugged them into the network, and joined Victor at the small round table in a triangle pattern.

As Peter read some of the theories, he shook his head.  Finally, he couldn't help but look at Victor and ask what he'd been thinking for quite a while now.  "What were you searching under when you found these?"

Victor just laughed The Shadow's laugh, which Stephen echoed.

Peter started getting chills.  "Never mind."  He went back to his computer.

Minutes later, Peter laughed again and said to the group, "Get this! Elvis was the man on the grassy knoll and he shot Kennedy!"

Stephen and Victor both managed to keep a straight face and said together, "You didn't know that?"

Peter shook his head again. "Do you actually take any of these seriously?"

"Peter," Victor chided in his best fatherly instruction tone. "There are certified doctors, men of science, who study these things for a living."

"Are those doctors…here now?" Peter wisecracked.

Two sets of all-knowing Cranston eyes looked around the room. "Not yet," said Stephen seriously.

"All right," said Peter finally. "But if a guy with a crystal ball and ghost-e-metre walks in, I am leaving!"

"We promise, Pete," said Stephen.  "No crystal ball guy. Oh, and by the way, it's pronounced Ghost-AM-itor."

The men all laughed and went back to work, grins spreading wider over their faces as they read the electronic insanity that came from the collective nuts of the net. 

***

3 hours later, the scene in the Sanctum had degenerated into three men slouching into expensive couches and chairs, with cold drinks and bowls of snacks and their respective computers in front of them. Every few seconds, a laugh would ring out and a crazy theory read off the screen.  It quickly became a game.

Stephen started the latest round of can-you-top-this theory reading.  "Look at this! Jack the Ripper was abducted by aliens!"

Victor read one and chuckled.  "This one needs his dosage checked."

Peter was aching from laughing so hard at the things he was reading.  "War of the Worlds actually happened! But they were fought off and with the help of H.G. Wells, they convinced the people that it was all a Hoax!"

"JFK and Jackie are living happily ever after on an island in the Pacific."

"Million year old dinosaur killed by modern rifle."

"Alien surveillance of Apollo Spacecraft."

Stephen started to read one aloud, then decided to hit the back button instead.  "This one has way too much free time."

"NASA plans to assassinate Bin Laden using an earthquake machine."

"Giant Spider terrorises New York criminals!" yelped Peter with a huge grin.

"Wait till they get a load of me." Stephen let loose with the classic Shadow laugh.

"You're getting very good at that," said Victor, giving his nephew an impressed smile.

"Thank you."

"Oh, this one is funny," said Peter. "Madman builds Nuclear Weapon in 1930's New York. Threatened New World Order, was locked in asylum."

Nobody laughed. Victor simply looked over at Stephen and said, "I thought you told him how your grandparents met."

"So did I."  Stephen went over to a hidden bookcase, opened it, and drew out a large volume. He handed it to Peter and said, "You'll find the whole story starting on page 73." 

Peter nearly fell out of his chair.

After a bit, the game started again.  Stephen burst out laughing as he clicked one page.  "Cold fusion machine prototype destroyed in fear of global economic crisis."

"Hitler's head kept alive in Area 51."

"Microchip technology: The real inventors."

"That was Granddaddy, right?" Stephen asked his uncle.

"No, he just paid for it," Victor corrected.

Peter looked at them both.  "Don't tell me—a Shadow agent invented the microchip with Cranston money."

"Well, not exactly," Victor explained.  "But my father invested heavily in the 1930s in a little company known as International Business Machines."

Peter threw up his hands.  "I have now heard everything."

"Not yet," Stephen corrected.  "Bet you haven't heard this.  Clone of Jesus Christ being grown from Shroud of Turin blood sample."

Peter laughed and returned to reading.  "Bigfoot Marries in Vegas Chapel! Wife insists: He is NOT an Animal!"

 "Spiderman is an alien!" called out Victor.

"I am not!" Peter objected.

"They must not know you the way I do huh, Pete?" grinned Stephen.

"This is the craziest stuff I've ever seen," remarked Peter.

"Yeah, this stuff is a bit odd."  Victor clicked to the next site on the list.  "But think about it:  A third-generation vigilante psychic and a guy who got bit by a radioactive spider are calling these guys 'weird'."

Peter nodded at that one and looked back at his screen. "WHOA! You guys will love this one. A secret spy network, which works for the devil, distinguishable by all members wearing girasol fire opal rings!"

Stephen and Victor rushed over and looked at his computer. Then they looked up at each other and laughed like maniacs in The Shadow's sinister laugh until the walls shook.

"I swear to God," Peter decided, "you are both insane."  He got up out of his chair and hopped onto the wall with his laptop to read further.

Collapsing back into their chairs again with enormous gins, both Cranstons reluctantly decided to get back to work.

Peter called out another one. "Shadowy vigilante discovers immortality drug in the 1930's."  He looked across at the two men.  "Shadowy vigilante…sounds like you guys."

"That's 2 conspiracies! Uncle, we are now officially legends!" Stephen and Victor reached across the table and gave each other a high 5.

***

As the sun set outside, Peter finally spoke up again. "I think we have it."

Stephen came over and took a look. "Rogue agency carries out secret missions. Poisoned ID pins found on victims of the secret N12 agency. Agents of N12 identified with secret pin."  He looked at his uncle.  "Sound familiar?"

Victor also read it over. "Looks like you found it. What's the screen name?"

Peter scrolled down and looked it over. "Darktruth2000."

Stephen couldn't help but snort out a laugh. Despite this, he headed over to the radio. 

"Yes," said Burbank quickly.

"Burbank," said Stephen. "I need you to track down the owner of a screen name for me. Darktruth2000.  Runs a site called blackasnight.com."

Burbank, obviously trying to suppress a laugh, got on it straight away.

"Boy, this brings back some memories," said Victor nostalgically. "I want to thank you boys for bringing me in on this. This has been so much fun."

"Chasing up leads had never been this hilarious before," answered Peter, who was still reading theories off his screen when the buzzer sounded.

Stephen clicked the switch on the radio.  "Report."

"The name belongs to Mark Glover. Available dossier coming across now."

"Thanks, keep me informed," Stephen replied as the pneumatic tube hissed.

Victor took out the papers and began reading. "Mark Glover, 35. Divorced, no kids. Collects unemployment, but works a variety of cash-only odd jobs in the area. Lost his job as a columnist in Washington Post because he kept publishing wild conspiracy theories. Fired from several jobs for personality disputes with authority. Has been arrested for stalking low-level government officials. Psychiatric evaluators diagnosed a moderate case of paranoia. Glover refused treatment. Lives in Washington, DC."

"Certainly fits the profile," commented Stephen. "I guess we go and find out what he knows."

Victor nodded. "Be careful around Net of 12. Despite what conspiracy nuts online think, you're not immortal."

"I understand. I'll be careful. Come on Pete, we're going."

"If you don't mind," said Victor, "I'd like to stay down here for a while."

Stephen nodded. "O.K. I assume you remember how to lock up?"

Victor laughed and put on his best-tired old geezer voice, and pretended to walk around with an invisible walking frame. "Don't worry about your old uncle, you kids go have a good time."

Stephen laughed again and gave his uncle a quick hug. "We'll let you know how it turns out."

"Sure thing."  Victor gave his nephew a long regard.  "Your father would be proud of how you turned out. And so am I."

Stephen gave his uncle a grateful smile and headed for the exit. "Peter, we are LEAVING!" he repeated.

Peter, who had missed all of this, was still staring at his screen. "Can we have some more fun with these nut balls first? Look! Here's Hitler's mind control formula."

"Come on Peter. NOW! I'll have my uncle send you some more bookmarks."

Peter finally left the screen and headed after his friend. "Whatever you say, Beelzebub."

Stephen gave the man his most chilling look. "Don't mess with the King of the Damned, E.T.!"

Peter gave a lunge toward the wall.

Stephen ducked.

Peter deliberately landed on the wall next to him.

For a moment, the two partners were locked in an ominous glaring contest.  Then, they both broke and giggled like idiots the rest of the way up the stairs.

Chapter 6

Mark Glover gave a furtive glance back at the streets as he entered his New York Avenue apartment building.  You never knew who was watching.  The streets of Washington, D.C. were dangerous places.  This was the home of the world's deepest, darkest secrets.  The CIA was just miles away.  The FBI, just a few streets over.  NSA, just up the B-W Parkway.  And the Pentagon was a stop on the subway, for pity's sake.  You had to be careful where you went.  And who you spoke to.  And who was watching you as you unlocked the security door on your apartment building.

Glover walked in and gave the door a hard push to close it behind him.  You could never be too careful.

He pulled out a pair of disposable rubber gloves and unlocked his mailbox.  It was just the usual assortment of junk mail, creditor's threats, and catalogs of useless stuff.  But you could never be too careful.

He ascended the old Federal-style rowhouse's staircase to his upstairs apartment.  No one would think to look for him there.  He'd moved from place to place, trying to escape from "them".  No one believed him that "they" were out there.  But there were dark secrets everywhere.  The only place safe was a dark corner of a dark old townhouse in a declining area of the city, where no one would think to look for him.  No one looked for anybody here—except "them".  So you could never be too careful.

He kept stealing glances around him as he fumbled with his key in the lock.  But soon enough, the lock finally turned, and he was able to get inside into the darkness and safety of his apartment.  He locked the door, applied the chain, and fitted a bar-like brace against the knob to brace the door from the floor and hold it shut.

"**_You can never be too careful._**"

Glover whirled and reached for a baseball bat next to the door.

A burst of webbing whipped it out of his hands.

Glover was now cowering in sheer terror at what he still couldn't see in the darkness all around him.  "I knew it," he said.  "I knew it.  You're with them.  I knew it."

"**_Them?_**" The Shadow's voice asked, an eerie question swirling around from all sides.

"I knew it," Glover said, terrified and triumphant at the same time.  "All those years people said I was crazy.  But I knew they were after me.  They're afraid of what I know."

"**_Who's afraid of you?  What do you know that would make them afraid?_**"

Glover stopped shaking quite so much.  There was great comfort in the truth, no matter how bizarre.  "You know who I mean.  Don't you?"

That got a chuckle from the unseen visitor.  "**_Yes, I know._**"  The chuckling blossomed into a full-throated mocking roar of laughter.

Glover now was completely enthralled with his own genius.  "So you're really one of them.  I was right.  Oh, my God…"  He looked around.  "Say…do you know Spiderman?  They say you guys work together.  Does he work for them too?  Or are you two like two spies working at cross-purposes?"

Spiderman pounced onto the wall next to him.  "Sh-h.  Don't tell anybody.  I'm an alien researching human religious practices."  He gestured with his head toward the darkness.  "He fronts a ring of devil worshipping spies."

Glover got over his moment of panic when the wall-crawler landed next to him, then looked interested.  "I'd heard that."

"**_What else have you heard?_**" The Shadow pressed.

Now Glover was nervous again.  "What do you mean?"

"We checked out your website," Spiderman replied.  "Cool stuff."

"**_And we'd like to know more,_**" The Shadow added.  "**_How do you know so much about all those secret societies?_**"

Glover gathered his composure again.  "I'm a reporter."

That got a chuckle from The Shadow.  "**_You mean you used to be a reporter._**"

"Before you got fired from the Washington Post," Spiderman added.

Glover looked suspicious.  "How do you guys know that?"

A heartier laugh answered the question.  "**_The Shadow knows._**"

"See, it's that devil-worship thing," Spiderman interjected in a confidential tone.  "Gives him all sort of special powers and stuff like that.  The folks back home on Argiopia want to know if there are other people here on Earth that know how to do that."

"Oh, there are," Glover reassured.  "You know, some people wear tinfoil to stop them."

"Really?" Spiderman said in his best mock-impressed tone.

"Yeah.  But it doesn't work.  They have rays to penetrate that now.  But Kevlar?  That works."

"_Impressive,_" The Shadow noted.  "_You know, mercury works best.  It's just hard to get it to hold in a hat._"

Glover beamed.  "I'll have to remember that.  I learned the Kevlar trick from one of my best sources.  It's not at all uncommon.  In fact, I know about this one group that's trying to do all sorts of things through biochemistry.  Some of the leading biotech research firms are in on it."

"_Are they also trying to weed out the undesirables through biochemistry?_" The Shadow pressed.

"Some of them," Glover said, suspicious.  "Why do you want to know?"

"_I saw on your website a description of a group that uses poisoned pins to deliver microscopic poisons.  I believe they were called 'The Network of Twelve._"

Now Glover was afraid again.  "You don't want to mess with them."

"Why not?" Spiderman said, now sitting on the door and blocking any escape route for Glover.

"They're bad news."  Glover crossed the room to his computer.  "I got all kinds of stuff on them.  But I'd never put it up where they could find it.  It's all hidden away."

"**_On your machine?_**" The Shadow quizzed.

"Triple encrypted," Glover bragged.  "They'll never break it."

"**_So it's protected against everything._**"

"Yeah.  Virus-proof and everything.  Even NSA couldn't touch it."

"**_But they could touch you._**"  The Shadow's voice was low and sinister.

Glover looked nervous.  "And you don't want them touching you."

"Why not?" Spiderman asked.  "Afraid you'll get anthrax or something?"

Glover started to answer, then smiled knowingly.  "Not falling for that one.  The old 'drop the hint near the truth to get the guy to tell you more' trick.  Not falling for it.  I know too much."  He headed for the kitchen and reached into the refrigerator to get a slice of several-day-old pizza.

"**_Maybe you do._**"  The Shadow swirled into visibility in the doorway of the kitchen.

Glover nearly choked on his cold pizza.  "How did you do that?"

"**_Never mind that._**"  He stepped closer.  "**_I want you to tell me what you know about Net of 12._**"

Glover could hear static in his head, and the room felt like it was closing in around him.  "Dark truth…Net of 12…purity of life…dark truth…Net of 12…purity of life…"

"**_Tell me the truth!_**" The Shadow demanded.

"Dark truth…Net of 12…purity of life…"  His eyes rolled back in his head and his skin took on a bluish-grey pallor.

"He's been poisoned!" Spiderman realized, diving across the kitchen to catch Glover as he fell to the floor.

Glover gasped for breath.  "Dark truth…Net of 12…purity of life…"  And with that, he went limp in Spiderman's arms.

Spiderman looked up at The Shadow.  "He's dead."

"**_Check him for a pinprick,_**" The Shadow said coldly as he opened the refrigerator.

Spiderman did so.  "Right ring finger."

"**_Let me guess—the same hand he was holding the pizza in?_**"

"Damn, you're good.  You use your psyche to find that out or are you just a good guesser?"

The Shadow extracted his Leatherman tool from his pocket and found the tweezers, then reached into the pizza box in the refrigerator and pulled something out.

Spiderman nodded knowingly at the pin held in the tips of the tweezers.  "Looks awfully familiar."

"**_Doesn't it, though?_**"

"Think he really knew something?"

"**_Somebody thought he did.  But he can't tell us now._**"

"Weren't you able to hypnotize him?"

The Shadow shook his head.  "**_Hard to cloud a mind that's already so clouded. Besides, would YOU want to go for a walk in his head?_**"

Spiderman vigorously shook his head.

The Shadow found a tiny evidence bag in his pocket and deposited the pin into it.  "**_So we need to find some other way of finding what he knew._**"  He headed back into the living room and walked toward the computer.

Spiderman joined him.  "Check his documents list."

"**_It'd be too much of a coincidence for him to have actually accessed it recently._**"

"You're kidding, right?  You saw how happy he was when he thought he was right about 'them'.  A paranoia conspiracy freak like that not looking at his own stuff when real news about secret terrorist cells and germ warfare is all over the place?  He's got to have pulled it up recently."

The Shadow wasn't convinced, but hit the "Start" button and clicked the "Documents" item.

One of the items was "N12.doc".

"**_Unbelievable,_**" The Shadow whispered.

"Not so unbelievable.  Consider the source."

"**_True._**"  The Shadow clicked on it.

A screen full of garbage appeared.

"Encrypted," Spiderman observed.

The Shadow looked at the garbled letters in the first line, then closed the document and found its actual location on the disk.  On a hunch, he right-clicked on it.

One of the menu options was "Encrypt/Decrypt".

"Gotta love Microsoft," Spiderman wisecracked.

The Shadow nodded and clicked the option.

A screen requesting a password popped up.

"You didn't happen to hear that from his clouded mind, did you?" Spiderman asked.

The Shadow looked thoughtful.  "**_Maybe I did._**"  He tapped out "DarkTruth" on the keyboard.

The disk ground for a moment, then the system stabilized.

"He said it was triple-encrypted," Spiderman noted.  "Any other scramblers on the disk?"

The Shadow searched the hard drive again.  "**_Jackpot._**"  He clicked another program icon.

The program opened.

The Shadow chose the N12 document and clicked "Decrypt".

The screen cleared and another password prompt popped up.

The Shadow typed out "Netof12".

The system worked for a moment, then popped up a "Decrypt complete" message.

"Let's hope we did it in the right order," Spiderman commented.

The Shadow nodded and started Microsoft Word, then chose the document from the "File" menu.

A blank document popped up.  Another password prompt appeared.

The Shadow typed "PurityOfLife".

The text of the document popped up.

Spiderman read the first lines of the document.  "A finer example of paranoid ranting I've never seen."

"**_Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you._**"  He looked around for something to put the file on.

Spiderman joined him.  "Wonder if he's got a CD burner?"  He handed The Shadow a sealed CD-R.

"**_Let's find out._**"  The Shadow cut open the shrink-wrap and put the disk into the machine, then clicked to save the file.

The system hesitated for a second, the CD drive spun up, and then things stabilized again.

The Shadow popped out the disk.  "**_Looks like we've got some bedtime reading._**"

"I'm not going to sleep after this."

"**_Neither of us are._**"

Spiderman nodded his agreement, and the two men swept away into the darkness.

Chapter 7

Hours later, the heroes were sitting in the Sanctum, in expensive couches, with huge manuscripts in their hands.  As they predicted, neither could sleep after their visit to Washington, D.C., so as night turned into early morning, they continued to study.

The records kept by the late Mark Glover were very orderly, well phrased, and included several references to local news items, personal experiences, and views of other conspiracy theorists. It was well written, laid out logically, and completely…

"…insane!" pronounced Peter, still reading the pages. "Stephen, this is crazy stuff."

"Yes, it is," agreed Stephen without looking up.

"I've seen more believable theories on Unsolved Mysteries. This is ridiculous."

"Yes, it is."  Stephen still did not look up.

"And we are equally ridiculous just for reading it. We should use this stuff for kindling and cat litter."

"And yet…"

"…we are sitting here at 3 am carefully considering every word." Peter groaned helplessly.

"Yes, we are."

The men resumed reading silently.

"Stephen," Peter said, once more doubting his partner's sanity, "would you remind me again why we are taking the ravings of a paranoid schizophrenic seriously?"

"Because the ravings of this particular paranoid schizophrenic may contain genuine clues concerning the deaths of 4 people."

Peter nodded, not quite convinced, and once again they began reading in silence.

The manuscript was split into sections, each of them on a different topic. There were personal journals, movements of government officials, surveillance of government offices, global news, political events and last but most important, in-depth information of the movements, actions and plans of N12.  The different sections constantly referred to each other, so the men were constantly flipping back and forth, comparing paragraphs.

"Look at this," Peter said, not certain he could take any more insanity.  "I can see why he didn't post this on his website—it's crazier than anything we saw there."

Stephen wandered over and looked at what Peter was reading. "N12 black projects: Operation Lazarus."

"Sounds like a title for a rejected X-Files episode."  Peter started reading aloud. "You take a patient on the brink of death, but who can still be cured, then have him declared dead and you have a covert soldier under mind control drugs. That's just plain stupid."

Stephen did not share the sentiment. Instead he turned to another page of the manuscript, Glover's private journals. It told of how he was being followed one day. It also gave a detailed description of the man. Olive skin, white hair, blue eyes and a small scar above his left eyebrow. "Check page 142."

Peter turned to the page Stephen indicated.  "More paranoia about being followed."

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."  Stephen handed Peter the photograph of Morgan Roche.

"Whoa!" said Peter. "You think Roche is one of these Lazarus recruits?"

"If not, he was at least following Glover."

"So maybe N12 did have an interest in him."

"Yep. And they killed him for it. We need to find out what else he knew."

The men returned to studying.

"You know," Peter said after a while, "this guy apparently thought that every conspiracy in the country revolved around him. He thinks everyone is out to get him."

"He was right at least once," commented Stephen dryly.

"Yeah, but check page 166.  This is hysterical.  I mean, apparently this guy wrote about anything that happened to him and how it was all a conspiracy. About how the policeman who walked the same beat every day for 3 years suddenly changed his route by a full 200 meters to track his movements on the pretence of buying a cup of coffee from a diner. About how his supervisor at his last job in the mailroom of the senate building had received orders to keep him under watch when he started to screen the Senator's mail. About how he was fired under false pretences, because he was getting to close to the truth. About how…"

"STOP!" shouted Stephen. "Which senator and when was he fired?"

Peter looked back through the pages.  "October 14th.  Senator Tom Daschle."

Stephen started typing away on his laptop, clicking through links on pages to find the one entry he wanted.  "Peter, that was the day before the anthrax letter was found there."

Peter raised an eyebrow.  "They kicked him out the day before? Coincidence?"

"Ordinarily I might say yes, but we know that Net of 12 is using anthrax. And the anthrax was found months ago, but the Senator's office just reopened. That clean-up took a pretty long while, don't you think?" 

"Yes. Anthrax clean-up should only take a couple of weeks at most.  Unless…"

"Unless you were doing something more than clean-up." Stephen started immediately following the thought. "Like studying what the anthrax was doing?"

Peter shook his head and rubbed his eyes. He spoke again doing a perfect imitation of Rod Serling. "Meet Peter Parker and Stephen Cranston. Two vigilante crime-fighters who believed when they woke up this morning that it would be just another day of chasing down drug-dealers and bank robbers. Two crime-fighters who tripped and fell, and stood up not in New York City, but in…The Twilight Zone." He began humming the classic Twilight Zone music.

Stephen laughed as he walked over to the radio and opened a connection.  "Burbank."

"Yes?" chirped Burbank, sounding way too alert for the hour.

Stephen would have sworn the man never slept.  "I need information. First of all, dig up what you can on the death of Morgan Roche. Second, I need details of the clean-up of Senator Daschle's office from the last few months."

"Yes, sir," said Burbank instantly.

After the connection closed, Peter had tried to put all the details together. "So, are we actually suggesting that N12 were testing types of anthrax, at a Senate office, and had a paranoid conspiracy nut fired first, because they didn't want him to find anything?"

"And you know he would try. He sees conspiracies everywhere. And N12 had been watching him."

 "Right.  But the fool wouldn't leave well enough alone, kept posting every random thought on the Internet."

"So they killed him just to shut him up."

Peter shook his head.  "This is awfully thin."

"Better thin than non-existent."

The buzzer sounded. "Yes?" Stephen said into the radio.

"Requested information found," said Burbank with clinical detachment. "Available information coming across now."

Hissing from the pneumatic tube sounded.

Stephen thanked Burbank and closed the connection, reaching for the pages.  "The senator's office remained closed because 'Hazardous Materials' experts wanted to carefully study the effects of the anthrax material. Turns out that that stuff was average run of the mill anthrax.  The real problem as it turns out was that the stuff was so fine it spread everywhere.  Even the postal facility that handled the envelope—Brentwood, in DC—was heavily contaminated."

"What about Roche?"

"Injured in the field. Doesn't say where in the field.  He stepped on a landmine. Stayed in a coma for 3 months before he was finally declared dead. Body was cremated."

"He looks pretty good for a dead man," commented Peter.

Stephen pondered the new information for a few moments.  "All right, how does this sound? N12 was doing a test run of their anthrax plan, but it got out of hand so the whole place had to be shut down. N12 didn't want that because it turned out to be too easy to detect, so they needed a new kind of anthrax. Which leads them to New York Medical.  What do you think?"

"I think it sounds disturbingly logical," replied Peter nervously.

"O.K. What is their plan? Did they get the anthrax just because they might need it? If LaBrue's findings are correct, they have already tested it—are they preparing for something?"  
  


"Well," said Peter, gesturing over his pages, "if any of this stuff can be believed, then Net of 12 is into pre-emptive strikes. During the Cuban Missile Crisis they bought second hand nukes and smuggled them into Cuba and Russia. When terrorist activity was planning to hurt American citizens overseas, they blew up some of the main terrorist bases. They like to make the first move."

"O.K., assuming they are following that trend, where would they strike?"

"Somewhere that can, or will soon be able to make Anthrax attacks."

Stephen nodded and pulled out another file, another packet of information Burbank had helped compile, with all the current information on anthrax he could get. Reaching into the file, he pulled out a list of countries and organisations that had developed anthrax lately.

Peter studied the list of his shoulder.  "A lot of possibilities."

"Yes. We have to find out, which one N12 is after. Check these names against Grover's information, look for one that N12 might have a grudge against or that they think should be targeted."  He handed Peter a copy of the list.

***

Two hours later, the men had worked their way down the list until they were left with 2 names—Israel and China.

"Which do you think?" asked Peter.

"I doubt N12 would waste their time and energy on Israel at the moment," said Stephen. "Secret societies like to stay hidden. They like being safe. Israel is constantly fighting amongst themselves and the Palestinians, and they need U.S. support badly. They won't be targeting Americans anytime soon. So I highly doubt that N12 would be concerned with them yet."

"That leaves China. Do you think they would target China?"

"Sure. They support North Korea, Iraq, and they're communist. What more incentive would a bunch like N12 need?"

"Isn't there some old military adage about never starting a land war in Asia?"

"So they don't start a land war.  You don't need to in a country as crowded as China is.  Remember all those missile strikes in Afghanistan blowing up the countryside?  About the only place they would work better is downtown Beijing."

"But even then, they could never reach all the Chinese government officials. So would they even try it?"

"Not if they could get someone else to make the attacks for them."

"Like who?" 

"Well. I bet N12 really believed that the whole problem with the captured spy plane should have been handled with more force."

"Except that it was a relatively minor incident and neither side wanted a war," Peter pointed out following the thought.  "But if there was a much bigger incident…"

"The timing is perfect here. People are terrified of anthrax attacks. Government offices have already been infected lately. Poison American government officials and leave evidence leading them to China."

"So where will N12 strike next? The Senate Chambers? The White House?"

Stephen suddenly looked struck by an idea.  "Maybe we should check out Senator Daschle's office?"

***

"…so as you can see, gentlemen, the Senate is truly back in business again," the congressional staffer told Stephen and Peter as he led them on a tour of the Hart Senate Building.

"I certainly can," Stephen responded, making entries in his reporter notebook as Peter took pictures of the offices.  "I'm sorry, what was your name again?"

"Gene DuBarry."

"Ah, yes, thank you.  And you work for Senator Daschle?"

DuBarry stood tall and proud.  "For two years now."

Stephen made a note of the tidbit.  "Always want to make sure of my attributions."

"And we like it when you reporters make sure."

Stephen laughed slightly, trying to hide his annoyance at the man's self-important tone.  "Pete, you got enough pictures or do you need to see anything else?"

"I'd really like to see the mailroom," Peter replied.  "It would be cool to have picture proof that the public doesn't need to worry any more about anthrax either coming into or going out of their senators' offices."

DuBarry shook his head.  "I'm sorry, but that room's off-limits to outsiders now.  We want to make sure any would-be terrorists don't get any ideas about new ways to sneak bad stuff into our building."

Stephen made a mental note to explore the mail room extra carefully now that DuBarry had declared it off-limits.  "Good idea.  Wouldn't want conspiracy theorists inventing new wild stories either, would we?"

DuBarry gave an uncomfortable laugh.  "Oh, no, of course not."  He paused.  "Well, if you don't need anything else for your story, gentlemen, I need to be getting back to work…"

"Just one more thing," Stephen said, reaching into his jacket pocket.  "You wouldn't happen to know if this guy works here or not?"

DuBarry looked at the picture of Mark Glover.  "Never saw him before."

"I see."  Stephen pulled out another picture.  "What about this guy?"

DuBarry studied Morgan Roche's picture.  "No, can't say that he does."

"Oh, that's too bad.  We'd heard they knew a lot about the whole anthrax cleanup.  I was hoping you'd know where we could find either one of them."

"Uh…I don't think either of them work here any more.  Maybe they did in the past, maybe they were part of the cleanup crew, but all those folks are certainly long gone now."

"I see."  Stephen put away the photos and extended a handshake to DuBarry.  "Well, thank you for your time, Mr. DuBarry.  It was nice to meet you."

"You, too."  DuBarry shook both men's hands, then nodded an excuse to leave.

Peter watched him walk away.  "Wow, he's transparent," he whispered to Stephen.

"Yeah, I think he needs to work on his poker face a bit more," Stephen agreed.

"Shall we come back tonight?"

Stephen gave a sinister chuckle.  "But of course."

Chapter 8

The Shadow swept the hallways, eyes constantly roving until he found the security room. Deftly palming a skeleton key into the lock, he eased the door open. In the room was a huge cabinet with glass doors, holding recorded security footage, a large bank of security monitors, showing the whole complex, and a pair of security guards watching them.

Reaching into his cloak, his deft fingers found a pocket, and withdrew a pair of darts. Keeping his gloved hands away from the needlepoint, he threw the darts, and caught the 2 men, who dropped before they could react to the sharp pricks. 

Turning to the bank of monitors he found one that showed the side of the building, the air-vent outlets, and the fence, with a line of trees beyond it. Sector 8-23a.

As the men snored softly, The Shadow let loose a quiet laugh and slipped a security key from one of their belts. Unlocking the glass cabinet, his fingers ran along the stack of tapes, till he found the right one. The security tape from the day before, Sector 8-23a.

Slipping it into the recorder for the Sector 8 cameras, he replaced the current image with the one from the day before. That done, he slipped the current tape into the old ones place, and pulled a small walkie-talkie from his belt. **_"Spidey? You hear me?"_**

***

Outside, Spiderman crouched in the trees, beyond the range of the cameras. "I hear you."

**_"I've done my bit here. See any patrols?"_** came the voice of The Shadow through the crackling handset.

"One just went past, they come every 5 minutes," replied Spiderman, looking at his watch.

**_"The cameras are dead, make your move. I'll check out the offices."_**

"Check, on my way."  Slipping the handset into his belt, Spiderman leaped from the trees, did a somersault over the fence, and landed easily on the wall. Wrestling the cover from a large air vent, he slipped in and pulled it back into place behind him.

***

The Shadow swept out of the security center and glided invisibly past the patrollers, searching the office names to find DuBarry's office. Finding it, he once again keyed the lock and entered the room.

The office was empty and the lights were off. Suddenly, a beam of light appeared, and swept over the desk. The circle of light hovered over a piece of folded paper. There was no dust on it, so the paper had just been placed there. A hand entered the circle of light, seemingly appearing from the darkness itself. The narrow beam glinted off the large shining jewel on the third finger. The slender gloved fingers opened the page. Written there was a short message:

"N12 commands that the new virus be released at 1700 hours tomorrow. Virus already in place at Senate chambers, you are to release, the same way as the test run. This will prove your loyalty and your competence."

The beam of light snapped off. The Shadow was about to go to the mailroom when the small radio buzzed quietly. Pulling it from his belt, The Shadow pulled it from his belt, and peeked outside into the hallway, looking for people passing by. A patrol was going past, up the hall, so the man in the dark clothes drew back and spoke into the radio in the relative privacy of the office. **_"Spidey?"_**

"I've found something in the air ducts," his partner's voice crackled in reply.  "Looks like one of those of those airtight Petri dishes with a timer on the seal, and an air pump in the bottom. It's empty and the seal is broken. Looks like this is where the anthrax was released from."

**_"Not the mailroom? That's news to me."_**

"I'm in the air ducts over the mailroom. The anthrax didn't come from a letter. It came from the overhead vents."

"Interesting.  But it gets better. This was a test run. I found a letter from N12 to DuBarry. He released the anthrax here, now it looks like they're going to do the same thing in the Senate chamber."

"DuBarry is in N12?"

"Looks like he's in training. Poisoning half the US government is his initiation test."

The Shadow could hear the shock in his partner's voice. "What's the plan? And what do I do with this thing?"

The Shadow considered that. **_"Leave it there. Sooner or later N12 will be back for it. And we have to find out where in the Senate's vent system the new anthrax is, and shut it…"_** He stopped as he noticed something on the opposite wall of the office. Clicking the torch back on, he saw he was right. 

The cover on the opposite air vent was missing.

"You still there?" called his partner through the radio.

**_"Spidey, have you gone near the offices?"_**

"No. Why?"

**_"Then you could have a problem. The cover on the vent here is gone. Get outta there. Someone might be coming to get that anthrax timer."_**

"Check. On my…wait, I hear something."

***

Invisible to Spiderman, yet only 30 feet away, Morgan Roche was dragging himself through the vents. Spotting Spiderman easily through his night vision goggles, he thought for a moment, wondering what to do next. Noticing Spiderman was hunched next to the anthrax injector, and realising that Spiderman was investigating it, he decided to take action.

***

Spiderman carefully crept down the passage, comfortable in the confined space, listening to the rustling sound, echoing through the darkness. Then the noises suddenly stopped. For a moment there was clanking sound of metal on metal.

Following the noise, his peering eyes caught sight of a canister, spewing smoke as it skittered towards him. Spiderman's Spider-sense suddenly screamed, and he hurled himself back. Crawling and sliding back the way he came; he tried to out run the smoke while shouting into his radio. "I'm under attack, he's trying to…" The smoke was concentrated in the tight area, and Spiderman passed out before he could finish.

Because of that, he did not see the man come closer, he did not see the man pull off his breathing mask and he did not feel the cuffs around his wrists. He did not feel himself dragged down the vent, and he did not hear the crunch as the man crushed his radio.

Chapter 9

The Shadow spun and raced out of the office. As the door opened, The Shadow disappeared but a coil of black flew disembodied along the walls, a streak of darkness that leaped steadily from one dark shadow and disappeared into the next, dancing in the dim light, but seeming not to care. A mass of angry black, moving desperately for the mailroom.

The doors to the mailroom exploded open and the dark coil swept in, in a sudden whirl, the darkness solidified. A man in black, his cloak flowing behind him like the wings of a monstrous bird, glanced up at the air vents.

The smoke was drifting down through the grates.  Looking along to the next, his sharp eyes picked up the smoke drifting, somewhat thicker, from the next vent. If the gas were thicker coming that way, then it would have started from… His eyes found the next vent in the line, following the trail, drawing the path.

Then came the detail he needed. There was a slight bend in the vent shaft, moving down the shaft, revealing the movements of the man in that space. Tempted to just pound the movement with bullets, he fingered his automatics, but decided against it as he could hit his partner. Resolving to save his ammunition till he had a clear shot, he rushed ahead. 

Having to use the corridors instead of the air vent systems, he fell behind. Bursting into the ground floor lobby, he saw several things—the huge air grate being put back in place by a man in a ski-mask, the doors propped open, his partner being carried into the back of a van by two other men, and Morgan Roche, getting into the van's cab.

The Shadow made himself visible, and drew his automatics, ready to fire as the van sped away. Rushing into the street after it, he squeezed the trigger, just as a chain wrapped around his neck, and pulled his aim off. A sharp kick to the back of his leg forced him to his knees, and the chain tightened around his windpipe. Cursing himself for forgetting the man securing the grate, The Shadow holstered his weapons, gripped his attacker by the forearms and hurled him into the wall of the building.

Catching the chain as his enemy fell, The Shadow prepared himself, in a combat crouch, as his opponent got to his feet and pulled out a long hunting blade. The Shadow swung the chain in a loop, ready to attack. The two experienced fighters barely glanced at each other's weapons before they pounced.

The Shadow ducked under the flashing blade, and whipped the chain around the knife arm. Swinging the man again, The Shadow delivered a kick to the knee and the man fell, his caught arm pulled behind his back.

Forcing his enemy against the ground, the sibilant whisper demanded compliance as burning black eyes stared a hard hypnotic glare into his captured prey's mind. **_"Where are they taking Spiderman?"_**

"Surrender is betrayal. Betrayal is Treason!" hissed the man, as if repeating a lesson from rote, and he bit down hard on one of his front teeth.

Hearing a slight crunching sound, The Shadow flipped his prisoner over and pulled off his ski mask, just in time to see the black liquid spread from the broken false tooth. The speed with which the man convulsed and died, told that cyanide was to blame.

From the time The Shadow left the building, to the moment his opponent died, only 20 seconds passed and the fleeing van was only 2 blocks away. Pulling out the small radio, The Shadow spun the frequency to one of the presets. **_"Shrevvy?"_**

***

In a cab three blocks away, Moe dropped the newspaper he was reading and grabbed the cab's radio. "Yes, boss?"

"A van will be passing you in about 10 seconds, I need to know where it goes. Standard following pattern."

"Yes, boss." Moe put the cab into gear, watching the van in the mirror, pulling out behind it.

***

It was a good thing Washington, DC, was laid out on a grid with a lot of one-way streets.  It made trailing the suspect van that much easier, especially for a cabbie used to the tight turns and streets of Manhattan.

Moe's cab tailed the van for exactly 10 minutes. Then it pulled off and headed back to pick up The Shadow. But no sooner had the cab left the trail, than a new car, this time a blue convertible, took up the chase. Behind the wheel was Rutledge Mann, one of the countless faceless Shadow agents. 10 minutes later, Rutledge Mann pulled a sharp right and pulled out a normal walkie-talkie and spoke into it. "West down K Street."

Moments later another car pulled onto K Street and took up the trail. Driving this particular car was Clyde Burke and in the passenger seat was Jericho Duke. The men were almost perfect opposites, with one distinct similarity. On their left hands were two fire opal rings.

They followed the van at a careful distance through DC's streets, across the Potomac into Northern Virginia, until the brake lights flared and the van prepared to turn into the parking lot of one of Crystal City's many towering buildings. The roller-shutter door started to ascend as the agents rolled past.

"Crystal City, Carrington Towers, just off Clark Place," Burke reported into his own walkie-talkie.

Then, without slowing, the tailing car turned at the next corner and immediately stopped. Jericho Duke jumped out and walked casually up the street, back the way they came.

Throwing the barest glance at the building, he saw a small private parking lot, filled with utility vehicles and expensive private cars. He caught a glimpse of a service elevator, holding several men with weapons, and a costumed form being dragged from the back of the van. Before he could see more, the shutter door cut off his view as it descended.

Continuing his walk around the block, keeping his speed regular as he headed back to meet his car, Duke pulled out a radio and spoke quietly and quickly into it. "Service elevator. West side of the building." 

Across the street from the building, the stairwell door opened and a man came out, lugging a heavy case. Everyone who knew him called him Hawkeye. The moonlight glinted off his girasol ring as he opened his case, and pulled out a large infer-red telescopic lens and a tripod. Setting it up, and concealing it under a grey tarpaulin, he turned it on and pointed it at the building in question, watching the slight outline of the service elevator move up the floors. Once it stopped moving, he pulled out his own small radio. "Thirteenth floor." he reported.

***

In Moe's cab, The Shadow acknowledged the reports from his people. Speaking to all the men he commended them. **_"Gentlemen, your work tonight has been exemplary. Hawkeye and Burke, continue surveillance of that building for the next 4 hours. At that time Duke and Mann will take over. You will work in shifts till sundown tomorrow. Stay out of sight. Report any activity through the usual channels."_**

The men acknowledged the orders quietly and the radio fell silent.

**_"The Capitol Building—Senate side,"_** The Shadow commanded his driver.

Moe made the short drive.  "Want me to wait?"

The Shadow climbed out of the cab.  "**_Make the block and find somewhere inconspicuous to wait.  I'll signal you when I'm done._**"

As Moe headed off into the light traffic of the pre-dawn, The Shadow did the math in his head. Sundown tomorrow would be a little over twelve hours away. Taking a deep breath, he hoped his partner could hold out that long.

Chapter 10

Gene DuBarry was sweating. The guard was searching his bag quite thoroughly. The 13 were quite clear in their instructions, and their assurances that the trigger would not be found. But the marines always looked at him like he was a sickening bug that had to be crushed. Well, not for long. Soon he would be powerful. Soon he would be one of the Bureau. The strong and few were in charge. Survival of the fittest, and soon he would number among them. 

The guard looked at Gene and seemed concerned. "Sir? Are you alright?"

DuBarry twitched slightly and stammered a reply. "Just a touch of the flu. I'll be fine."

DuBarry fidgeted under the ever-watchful stare of the guard. But before the man could pose another carefully worded query, his radio crackled to life. "Sector 1 calling for assistance."

The guard dropped the matter of DuBarry and handed him his briefcase and headed rapidly for the entrance, hand on his gun.

Gene breathed for what felt like the first time in several minutes, and headed inside.

***

The guard reached the entrance and made it clear that he was ready to draw his gun. But then he saw the man sprawled on the steps and relaxed.

For it was obvious what the problem was. A man in overalls had collapsed and sprawled out on the steps of the entrance. His skin was pale and his breathing shallow. As the guard approached the prone figure, another man ran up and immediately took his pulse.

"Excuse me sir! Don't touch that man, I'll call an ambulance," said the guard in a commanding tone.

The other man was not fazed. "I'm a doctor! This man has just had a massive heart attack. He won't live long enough to get to a hospital. We need to get him inside right now, you must have a medical facility in there! Come on! We have to hurry."

"Sir, I cannot let you in without some form of identification."

The doctor pulled out a card. "Doctor Chance LeBrue."  He gestured over the prone figure before him.  "Now give me a hand with him! We're running out of time!"

The guard called over one of his workmates and the men lifted the still figure and hustled him quickly into the medical ward. LeBrue slung his pack over his shoulder, and after waiting through a quick search, hurried after them.

***

Dr. LeBrue motioned the solitary nurse to wipe his forehead. She swabbed the sweat away as he continued manual CPR.

LeBrue stopped CPR and put his stethoscope to the man's chest.  He peered at the man's pupils with a penlight.  Then he took the man's pulse and sighed.  "O.K., nurse. Note down the time. Time of death 7:02 am. Cause of death: Cardiac arrest."

"Do you want to try the defibrillator?" asked the nurse, motioning to a boxy cart.

LeBrue shook his head. "Won't help. His pupils are dilated--that means he's got no brain function.  We just weren't fast enough. Thanks for your help." 

The nurse nodded solemnly and headed out of the room to wash up as LeBrue pulled a sheet over the figure on the table.

As the nurse walked out, another guard entered. "Sorry to interrupt, doc, but I have to check the body. Suicide attacks aren't unimaginable."

LeBrue nodded and stepped back.

The guard reached for the sheet…then jumped back with a yelp of pain.

The body on the table jumped up, back from the dead, and let loose a whispered laugh.

Petrified, the guard wavered as he saw the hypodermic needle in the spectre's hand. The figure seemed to grow and moved slowly toward the guard. As his vision dimmed and his knees buckled, the guard tried to make it to the alarm button, but the moment he took his eyes of the terrifying figure, the darkness closed in on him.

***

Chance LeBrue was surprised at the sudden burst of action, even though he had been prepared for it. But nothing could make the chills stop as the man's overalls peeled away and the dark clothing became visible, punctuated with a burst of mirthless laughter.

**_"Excellent. The plan worked like clockwork,"_** said the sinister voice.

"That it did," agreed LeBrue, handing over his pack to the raven figure.

"**_I don't need that just yet._**"  Nevertheless, he took the pack from LeBrue.

It was too odd, LeBrue mused, how even through the entire ordeal, the only image he ever saw of The Shadow's face was a glimpse of the disguised one; even now, the man who'd tossed aside the overalls was just a swirl of odd tricks of light, his true face unseen.  LeBrue indicated the unconscious guard. "But what about him?"

**_"He's going to report nothing dangerous about the body, and escort you out personally,"_** replied The Shadow calmly, crouching over the prone figure.

For a moment, LeBrue thought his boss was mad. The Shadow had swirled into visibility and did not move perceivably for about 3 minutes. When he stood and turned, LeBrue reared back in shock. For a moment, it seemed the guard had a twin, and that the twin had somehow taken The Shadow's place.

**_"Help me get his uniform,"_** commanded the doppelganger, and LeBrue suddenly had no doubt. The voice of The Shadow was a very distinctive sound.

Minutes later, the man was stripped of his uniform and was now lying on the bed, the sheet over him.

The Shadow now looked precisely like the unconscious guard. **_"Let's go, Doc."_**  Then, he stopped and thought for a moment.

**_"Sorry to interrupt, Doc,"_** said The Shadow in his otherworldly voice, imitating the guard's opening words.  He took a deep breath, then blew it out hard.  "Sorry to interrupt, doc," he said again, his voice flat and plain.  He rubbed his throat, then cleared it and tried again.  "Sorry to interrupt, doc," he repeated as he moved for the door, sounding exactly like the guard.

LeBrue had a flash of Déjà vu seeing him in the door, but got over it quickly as the man motioned him to follow.

"Sorry you couldn't save him, Doc," said the guard as they approached the entrance. "Thanks for all your help though."

"No problem," answered LeBrue, heading back to his car.

***

The guard watched calmly as the doctor left and then headed off to the security director's office.

"Sir," he said from the door. "The doc just left, there weren't any problems with the body, and the morgue says they can have a mortician here in a few hours."

The man didn't do more than glance at the guard. "Fine, leave it in the medical ward for now."

"Sure thing, boss. I'm gonna go back on patrol now."

The man behind the desk nodded and the guard left.

***

Moments later, the unconscious guard who had unwillingly loaned The Shadow his uniform was redressed and left alone to sleep off the remainder of the sedative he'd been given.  The Shadow quietly emerged from the medical ward and blanketed the area with a hypnotic suggestion as he waited for a break in foot traffic to slip out into the hallway.

The break came, and The Shadow quietly moved along near the doorways, ready to slip back into one on a moment's notice.

Wandering slowly down the hallway, he waited at another junction for traffic to clear, and slipped beneath the nearest security camera, into its blind spot, vanishing completely.

The hallway was still for several minutes, and when the next patrolling guard passed the camera, a strange streak of black extended from the wall and merged with his shadow.

Nobody noticed the guard's shadow was that of a man in a slouch hat and cloak.

The guard continued, oblivious to his strange hitchhiker. Soon enough, the guard passed the personal offices, and the fantastic coil of black leaped from him to an unlocked door.

The coil of black slipped into the door, which opened briefly and silently. The coil of darkness merged with the shadows in the room and solidified, becoming an imposing figure in a slouch hat.

The Shadow laughed silently and pulled loose the air vent in the room. In one hand was a hollow blowpipe. He wished he had his automatics but it would have been impossible to get them past the detectors, and discretion was more important now.

The Shadow checked the clock. The senate would be in session in 4 hours. DuBarry would wait a little longer, just to make sure that the latecomers had time to get in place.

_In the meantime,_ The Shadow thought, _I have a lot of air ducts to check_.

***

_I really hate the taste of cotton._

So thought Spiderman as he returned to consciousness after what felt like forever.  His head ached and his mouth was dry.  His shoulders and knees also hurt, and it only took a few seconds to figure out why—his wrists and ankles were bound behind him, in a hogtie position.  He pulled against his bonds.

They began to pull tighter against him in response.  "What's going on here?" he muttered.

"Kevlar cuffs," a dolorous voice returned.

Spiderman looked up.

In the darkness of the room, he could barely make out Morgan Roche glowering at him.  "You look like the walking dead," Spiderman joked.

"Shut up," Roche snapped in response.

"Nah, I like talking.  I'll talk to myself if I have to.  Only thing I hate is arguments with myself.  I always lose."  He paused to see if Roche was reacting.  "So, there's got to be a reason you haven't killed me yet.  There usually is."

Roche smiled coldly.  "I like bugs.  I used to pull the legs off bugs when I was a kid."

"Well, then, you've got a problem.  Spiders are arachnids, not bugs."  He ran his fingers along the surface of the cuffs around his wrists, feeling for weaknesses.

There were none.  And the bonds responded to the slight movement with a slight tightening.

Spiderman groaned.  "You think maybe you could loosen these a little?  I always did hate tight clothes."

"Keep moving like that and they'll cut your hands off."

"I'll bet they will.  So, how long are you planning to keep me alive?"

"Until our work is done."

"And just what kind of work would that be?"

"The Government is weak and indecisive.  They can't decide who they want to fight.  So we will decide for them."

"You know, most people in Washington use money to make the government decide something in their favor."

"Money is irrelevant.  No amount of money can buy a true passionate emotional response."

"And that's what you hope to get when you sprinkle mutant anthrax into the Senate Chamber?"

Roche drew his gun.  "You are too smart for your own good."

_Well, that was real bright,_ Spiderman mused.  "Hey, come on now.  Let's not be hasty.  I mean, after all, wouldn't it be better to tell somebody about all this so they know what a great service you're doing for your country?"

"I've done my service to my country.  Now is the time for someone else to do their service."

"And you're just waiting around to make sure he does his job, right?"

"You talk too much."  Roche fired his gun.

Spiderman prepared for the impact of a bullet--but felt the hot burn of a tranquilizer dart plunge into his thigh instead.  The room grew blurry, then everything went dark.

***

The Capital Building was entirely too well ventilated.

So thought The Shadow, as he crawled through yet another series of ducts, looking for Net of 12's anthrax time bomb.  He'd been over virtually every inch of the areas outside the main Senate chamber, and had found plenty of empty committee rooms and scarcely-attended offices, but no anthrax.  That could only mean it really was in a duct in the main chamber, exactly where he'd hoped it wasn't but feared it was.  But the Senate chamber was huge, and the ductwork was a crazy quilt of tunnels and curves that ringed the room.  There was so much to search, and he knew that there was so little time; the room was rapidly filling with senators for what he'd learned from the echoing voices below was an impending high-profile vote on an aid package to Taiwan.  If he could just figure out where the time-release canister was…

Suddenly, he heard a familiar-sounding voice.  "Oh, hello, Senator Clinton."

The Shadow paused.  That was DuBarry.  Now to figure out where he was.  The Shadow found a vent overlooking the floor of the Senate and peered down into it.

A short woman in a black pantsuit was barely visible out of the corner of his eye.  She was standing with her hands her hips and looking upward.  He couldn't hear her words, but he did hear the response…

"I'm sorry, Senator, I didn't mean to step on your papers.  There was this big, nasty spider coming down from the vent…" DuBarry's voice trailed off drowned out by the rest of the ambient noise of the Senate chamber.

The Shadow's eyes widened.  The fact that he'd heard DuBarry could only mean that he must have been standing close to a vent.  And the only reason for a Net of 12 initiate to stand on a senator's desk to get that close to a vent would be…

The Shadow eyeballed the Senate floor again, then backtracked down his vent to find a cross-shaft to take him across the chamber.

He could hear the rapping of the gavel below.  The Senate was being called to order.  He scrambled through the vent as fast as he could, occasionally stopping to pull his cloak loose from a connecting strip or loose screw.

The announcement of today's agenda was being read.  The Shadow finally found a perpendicular shaft and began crawling around the building.

The first speaker had started.  Dammit, he was running out of time.

A faint flicker of light was coming from the cross-shaft just ahead of him.  A flickering timer, perhaps?  He moved quickly toward it.

Someone on the floor had called for the end of debate.  Of all the times for the Senate to actually want to get down to business…

Oh, good, they were actually debating whether to call for the end of debate.  Nice to know the government still functioned as efficiently as ever.  The Shadow kept looking down the air shaft, trying to find the flickering light he'd seen.

Someone called for the end of debate over the end of debate.  Bureaucracy at its finest.  He could see the vent covering ahead; the time bomb had to be near.

The Senate was about to take an up-or-down vote on ending debate--at this point, it didn't matter which one--when The Shadow finally found his prize.  Good grief, it was tiny.  But it contained enough powdery residue probably fully laced with mutant anthrax spores to kill everyone who breathed the air coming through the shaft.  He reached into his coat for the dual-layered vacuum canister he'd brought.

The vote was being taken.  The Shadow pried the time bomb out from under a loose section of the duct.

The ayes had it and debate was being ended.  The Shadow opened his vacuum canister and put the time bomb carefully in it.  Then he reached into his pocket for another flask, this one heavily insulated.

The moderator was calling for a vote on the Taiwan aid bill.  The Shadow opened the insulated flask and poured half its contents--dry ice pellets--into the canister and quickly shut the lid tightly.

The vote was being taken.  The Shadow pocketed the insulated flask again and quickly moved out of the shaft, clinging to the canister with all his might.

It took almost as long to tally all the votes as it did for The Shadow to get clear of the Senate's air shafts with his canister.  No time to get it outside; he found an empty file cabinet in the empty office he'd escaped into, shoved the canister into a drawer, and ducked behind the desk.

He heard a muffled "poof", then nothing.

Cautiously, he slipped out of his hiding place, then stole over to the cabinet and opened the drawer.

The vacuum canister's inner layer was covered in a heavy layer of frost from the disintegrating dry ice crystals.  But amazingly, the outer layer had held firm.  And no anthrax had seeped out.

The Shadow breathed a sigh of relief.  _One obstacle down, two to go.  Now to find DuBarry._

Chapter 11

The Shadow had a pretty good idea of where DuBarry was going. Heading for the entrance, he found an unwitting accomplice as the guard changed.  Merging with the guard heading outside, and fighting the impulse to push him out the door, he followed on the man's heels.

Outside now, and trying to keep in the shadows, he saw DuBarry's car pull away. Following it on foot as far as the end of the block, he turned and found Moe's cab pulling up less than 10 feet behind him, its door opening automatically. A man in a suit tried to get in, and was thrown back to the ground by an invisible force. The door slammed and the cab screeched away, leaving the man confused and bruised on the ground as an echoing laugh trailed the screaming cab into the crush of DC traffic.

***

****

**_"Carrington Towers,"_** commanded The Shadow. **_"Hurry. We have to get there before DuBarry. Let's show this city how we drive in New York."_**

"You got it, boss," laughed Moe, who gripped the steering wheel tighter, shifted comfortably in his seat, and floored the accelerator.

***

"The Twelve want to talk to you."

Spiderman woke up to hear those words coming from what must have been a cell phone, but did not move, or make any indication that he was awake at all.

"Put it through here," ordered Roche. He sounded nervous, like he was about to speak to God. 

Spiderman opened his eyes, hidden beneath his mask. A potion of the wall had slid upward, revealing a big screen video display, and a video phone hook-up. On the screen was a conference table with 12 people sitting around it, all of them hidden in shadows. Spiderman knew that these men would have been the original twelve-man network, or at least their replacements.

"What went wrong, Roche?" demanded the central figure, his voice distorted through an electronic voice box, but still carrying a lot of rage.

"Sir?" Roche was confused.

"The anthrax did not go off. The Senate is adjourned for the day. This mission was under your jurisdiction. WHAT WENT WRONG?"

"Sirs…I have no idea. I left the triggering of the device to Gene DuBarry. He should be reporting in any minute now. I-I will find him and get an answer. U-until then, I'm as much in the dark as you are about this."

Spiderman grinned beneath his mask. He knew exactly what had gone wrong.

"Find an answer FAST," commanded the spokesman. "We do not take betrayal lightly."

Roche almost fell over. "I swear there was no duplicity involved."

The screen went dark before he finished speaking.

Morgan Roche turned around slowly. He noticed Spiderman's sides shake with barely contained laughter. He savagely kicked Spiderman in the ribs and hauled him onto his knees by his throat.

Spiderman tried to pull loose again by reflex and the handcuffs bit tighter into his skin. He sucked in a painful breath.

Roche put a gun against one of his mask's lenses. "You will tell me exactly what you did or I will put those handcuffs around your head."

"Why?" asked Spiderman sarcastically.  "Afraid the CIA will pick up my telepathic call for help?"

"Nonsense," Roche said viciously. "If that was my goal, I would use a mercury helmet, not Kevlar restraints." 

"DuBarry is here. He's requesting entrance to the lobby," crackled an intercom.

"Let him in."  Roche turned to Spiderman. "Maybe he knows more than you do."

Despite himself, Spiderman couldn't stop giggling.  "Somehow, I doubt that." 

***

An inconspicuous, irregular pool of pure anthracite black was curled beneath the awning of the Crystal City tower, still, waiting.

It suddenly tensed when DuBarry stood at the door, and leaped into action when he opened the door. But just when it was about to follow him in, several armed guards surrounded him and led him to the elevator. 

The Shadow turned left and right, trying to see the entire lobby. The first things he noticed were armed watchmen, infrared alarms, and security cameras.

The Shadow slipped away and into the next street, where Moe's cab was waiting.

"Any luck?" Moe asked as his regular passenger got into the car.

**_"There's no way in. No sneaky way, anyway."_**  The Shadow laughed.

"What're you thinking?" asked Moe.

"There are three ways to open a locked door, Moe.  One is to use a key, another is to pick the lock, and the third is to break it down."

***

DuBarry walked proudly between the escorts, head held high. He had done it. He had pushed the button; he had passed the test. Now he would be one of them.

The elevator door opened and waiting for them at the other end of the hallway, was Morgan.  "Gene," he said jovially, "come in.  Maybe you can help me with something."

DuBarry followed him into one of the rooms, and in it were two things:  A chair, and handcuffed to it, Spiderman.  "Spiderman?" DuBarry was surprised. "I thought he was in New York." 

"That's just what I wanted you to think. The mother ship thought I could do better here though," wisecracked Spiderman.

"Shut up, bug," snapped Roche.

Spiderman gave the body posture of a man offended.  "I'm an arachnid. What is so hard about that?"

"Gene," began Morgan, ignoring Spiderman, "maybe you can tell me why you didn't set off the anthrax like you said you would."

The look of confusion and shock on the man's face was too realistic to be doubted. "I did set it off, boss. Here.  Look." He handed Roche the trigger remote.

Roche looked it over.  Sure enough, it had been activated.  "Well guess what, Gene? IT DIDN'T WORK!"

Spiderman wished at that moment that he could master his partner's chilling laugh.  "Feeling the pressure, Morgan? Afraid the boys upstairs aren't going to send you that thank you card? Or worse, afraid they'll kill you again?"

"SHUT UP!" Morgan bellowed.

***

The Shadow marched down the street toward the Crystal Tower entrance once again. The sun was at that point in the setting sky which made shadows indistinct and hard to find, when it was bright enough to see, but the sun was sinking below the horizon.

The Shadow reached the parking lot entrance and affixed a small box to the side.

***

"I'm going to count to three," said Roche calmly as he lifted his gun and pointed it at Spiderman.

"That does it Morgan, you are out of my will," huffed Spiderman. 

"One."

"Aim straight now—I hate poor marksmanship."

"Two."

Suddenly, the room was rocked by a heavy shudder, and the sound of an explosion drifted up from below. Morgan ran over to the window and stuck his head out. Smoke drifted up the walls.

The radio crackled to life.  "This is sector seven."  Morgan could hear choking coughs. "Somebody just blew up the parking bay entrance."

"Who? Can you see him?"  The tension was beginning to show in Morgan's face.

"There's too much smoke…" The man coughed again.  "Wait. I think I can see…oh My G-"

A bloodcurdling scream came from the tiny speaker.  There were two shots, and the noise stopped quickly.

"Sector seven—report!" shouted Morgan.

The only answer was a sinister laugh.

***

The Shadow moved invisibly down the next hallway, automatics drawn and senses alive. He had covered 3 hallways in about 2 minutes and there were armed guards in each. Deciding to take a shortcut, he pressed the button for the elevator.

***

Morgan could not raise anyone on the first floor. Finally he gave up and turned to Spiderman. "You're not working alone, are you?"

"Nope, I have the Prince of Darkness on my side."

"Another freak." His face twisted with rage as he looked at DuBarry. "And YOU led him here."

DuBarry looked helpless.  "Bos-"

#BLAM#

A bullet nailed DuBarry, right in the chest.

Roche didn't miss a beat after executing the man. He lifted his radio. "All guards on level 3. Our target is there, on his way to level 13. I want all units armed and ready to intercept."

"Yes, by all means send your guards," laughed Spiderman.  "Send 'em all and let him sort 'em out."

"Who is he?" demanded Roche.

"Darkness," answered Spiderman ominously, doing his best to unnerve Roche.  "Power.  Terror."

Another scream came from the radio, then another taunting, triumphant laugh.

That laugh was the best sound Spiderman had ever heard.  "And he's coming for you." 

***

Five guards stood at attention outside the elevator on level 5.

"Unit 2 ready." reported the team leader into his radio.

_Ding!_ The elevator had arrived.

"FIRE" bellowed the team leader.

Five automatic weapons blasted the door as it opened, turning it to Swiss cheese.

The doors opened, and before them was an empty elevator.

"Report," ordered Roche from the 13th floor.

"The elevator is empty. It was a decoy."

Nobody noticed the dark figure looming up behind them from the stairwell door.

***

"Get out of there. Get up here now," shouted Roche into the radio.

There was no answer, only a maniacal laugh.

"Battle's not going too well is it, Roche?" asked Spiderman. "You can't stop him. Nobody has in over 70 years.  Nobody ever will."

"Why do you work with him, then? I'd be too nervous to work for the indestructible man."

"Better to work with the indestructible man than against him."

Shots were fired 8 levels blow, echoed from the radio speaker in Roche's hand. More laughter.

Roche looked infuriated.  "Well, your partner, whatever he is, is going to have the fight of his life, but you won't be in it."  He pulled out a hypodermic and injected it into Spiderman's arm.  "That should start to work in a few minutes." Roche was gathering up a gun and his pack. "I'm going now.  My men are going to chop up your friend pretty bad. Once it's over, I'll be back, and maybe that will help you to talk."

Spiderman would have answered, but the room started to spin and turn fuzzy.

***

The Shadow scaled the outside wall. The corridors were becoming crowded, and the men were frightened, trigger-happy, and had laser sights—something mind clouding did not work very well to counteract. Right now, it was a better idea to take a different route.

Making it to a window, he peered inside. In the room, was his partner, shackled to a chair, looking like he was…drunk? Looking from one side of the room to the other, he saw it was empty.  He did a quick search for alarm triggers, then pulled out his glass cutters and cut a hole in the window.

Unlocking it, he slid it up and entered the room as silently as he possibly could.  The sight of Gene DuBarry on the floor gave him a start, but he soon realized that it was the dead body of Gene DuBarry and unlikely to cause him any difficulties.  Satisfied he was otherwise alone, he swirled into visibility and approached his partner.  **_"Spidey, are you O.K.?"_**

"Hey," Spiderman was weaving back and forth. "Glad you're here. I figured it out."

**_"What?"_** The Shadow was confused.

"I know who did it," drowsed Spiderman. "It was Colonel Mustard in the Library with the candlestick."

The Shadow looked hard at his partner for a moment, and then waved his hand back and forth in front of his partner. **_"Spidey, do you see trails when I do this?"  _**

"Whoa!" laughed Spiderman. "Your hand never did that before."

**_"O.K."_** The Shadow pulled out his knife, a strong, sharp blade that could cut almost anything; he started to cut at Spiderman's bonds, since the self-tightening cuffs fought his attempts to break them. He did not want to shoot them off; too great a risk of hitting his partner's hands. It was working, but slowly.

As he worked, Spidey spoke to him. "You know what, I've decided, after careful reflection, that you are NOT the devil."

**_"Thanks, Spidey."_** The cuffs broke, and The Shadow helped his friend out of his chair. **_"Now, why don't you come over here with me."_**

Spiderman tried to take a few weaving steps. "Only if we go together."

The Shadow pulled out a flask and half lifted Spiderman's mask. **_"Here you go. Take a swig of this."_**

Spiderman did.  "Yuck.  I always did hate cough medicine."

The Shadow counted down from three to one in his head.

On the beat that would have been "zero", Spiderman practically exploded into motion. In an excess of manic energy, he nearly flew around the room and bounced off the walls, ceiling, and floor swinging his fists and punching the air until he finally stopped.

"Whoa. What was that stuff? That go-juice has one hell of a kick." Asked Spiderman, now completely clear-headed.

The Shadow laughed softly and looked at the flask in his hand. **_"Something Granddaddy cooked up. An energy drink. Never studied it that closely—been afraid to."_**

That did not reassure Spiderman. "Great. Should I be worried?"

"Well, don't be surprised the next time you use the bathroom."

"WHAT?"

**_"Kidding. Where's Roche?"_**

"He headed out a few minutes ago. Didn't want to be too close to you."

The Shadow laughed. **_"Smart man. Let's go get him."_**

The men headed for the door. But Spiderman felt nervous still. "You WERE just joking about that bathroom thing, right?"

Chapter 12

Morgan Roche moved as rapidly as possible as he moved for the hidden passage, known only to him and a few others.  He found his employees sprawled out on the floors. Sometimes there were groups of them, sometimes on their own, all flat on the ground, with their weapons clutched in their hands, and spent bullet casings around them.

Some of them groaned as he checked them, the ones that still showed signs of consciousness, and he forced them to stand up and follow, until he had about six men at his side.

"Spread out." He commanded, and the men fanned out until they were in file. Three men in front of him, three men behind him, all of them armed, and turning on every light as they went. The men had all agreed that they had been struck by something, but all their descriptions varied. The only common factor was that it was dark, and it was terrifying.

The file of men, all of them scared and turning this way and that, searching for a clue, a hint of the enemy in the well-lit hallway. The 2 men in the lead looked carefully around a bend in the hallway. It was very dark after the turn. Roche flipped all the light switches and the lights lit up. From behind them came the terrifying noise. Low, mocking laughter.

The corridor lights brightened.

With the menace behind them, and the men desperate to escape a second encounter, the lead two ran around the bend, Morgan and his following posse behind them. 

Moving fast, and with the darkness receding, Morgan almost began to feel the tiniest sense of escape. Even the laughter had stopped.

Turning the corner, Morgan saw his lead men crouched on the floor, staring carefully at something on the floor. Morgan came closer and looked it over. It was the size and shape of a large coin, and about twice the thickness.

"We don't have time for sightseeing." Roche ordered gruffly, wiping away the nervous sweat, trying to keep his expression calm. "Keep moving."

The disk exploded.

With a slight cracking noise, the disk threw out a blinding light, which filled the entire hallway, and blinded everyone. The armed men roared in pain as they rubbed fiercely at their eyes.

There was a sudden noise. Thwapp!

And then another noise, this one a sharp click.

And then, the most worrying noise of all…an insane, triumphant laugh. 

With his eyes clearing, Morgan spun, looking in every direction, pointing his gun everywhere he looked. He couldn't see anything. Just darkness.  Fearing that he was blind, he suddenly realised what the clicking sound was. It was the lights being turned off. Waiting just a few more seconds, he could make out two of his men, each of them rubbing at their face, holding out their hands, trying to see. Still loud and triumphant, the wild, menacing laughter rang out.

Roche's eyes finally cleared, and he looked around him. In shock, he realized only two men were left. His guards had been cut down by half.

The remaining men had also realised this and were looking at each other, then at the darkness. In their eyes was plain, pure, primal fear, pure survival instinct, telling them to run and hide.

Morgan saw this, and made his gun obvious to them.

The men considered the gun, and the crazy look in his eye, then grudgingly followed him as he led them toward the emergency exit once again.

None of them noticed the man in a red and blue suit on the ceiling above him, with the two unconscious men stuck to the ceiling nearby.

After reaching the next turn in the hallway, Roche looked back at his men. 

They were gone.  All that was left was a low echoing laugh that was beginning to swell through the corridors.

"What do you want? What business is this of yours? Why are you doing this?" he screamed wildly at the hallway over the low laughter.

**_"To create a true passionate emotional response,"_** came the answer, the words swirling around him.

Morgan would have responded, but there was a sudden swirl of darkness, and the gun was knocked from his hands.

"You've lost, Roche," said a voice above him.

Roche jumped away from the wall and looked up.

Spiderman was perched on the wall, looking down at him.

His words triggered a memory in Morgan's mind. A look of neutral calm crossed his face. "Surrender is Betrayal. Betrayal is Treason." Then he bit down hard on his front teeth.

The Shadow had leaped forward on hearing the mantra, but too late. Morgan jerked, and collapsed.

The pair was silent for a long moment, looking at their defeated foe. The battle was done. The highest ranking field member of N12 was dead. So…

"Now what?" asked Spiderman.

"We search the building. We have to find some clue, some lead that we can follow back, try to find the rest of The Network of 12."

Spiderman nodded and the men departed, beginning their search.

***

By the time they reached the building's security office, there was nothing left of it but smoking husks of computers and blasted out TV monitors.  "Maybe you should consider lower grade explosives next time," Spiderman wisecracked.

"**_This isn't my handiwork,_**" The Shadow replied.  "**_Self-destruction mechanism, most likely.  Dammit._**"  He walked into the room, looking at the remains of what was left.  "**_Not even a scrap of videotape.  These guys are thorough._**"

Spiderman's spider sense suddenly hit DefCon 5.  "Get down!" he said, diving for The Shadow.

The two of them hit the floor as the sound of a hydraulic-powered air gun burst out its shots.  That was followed by a second small explosion from a closet off to the side.

For a minute, neither dared move.

Finally, The Shadow asked a question.  "**_Any more surprises in here?_**"

"None that I can tell," Spiderman admitted.

They got up from the floor.  Spiderman sprang to the wall adjacent to the closet where both the shots and the explosion came from.  "Whoa.  Check this out."

"**_Let me guess—a bin of N12 pins blew up?_**"

Spiderman was surprised.  "Damn, you're good.  When did you get clairvoyant?"

"**_Look what just missed us._**"

Spiderman looked over to the opposite wall.

Scatter-shot plastered on it were more N12 pins than he could count.  "Looks like a seamstress's pincushion."

"**_One last booby trap.  Thankfully we triggered it and not the police._**"  He listened at the approaching sirens off in the distance.  "**_Which it sounds like we need to avoid encountering right about now._**"

The two men quickly made their way out of the building, cutting behind several other buildings and meeting Moe Shrevnitz several blocks away.

As the cab started to pull onto the freeway to take them out of Crystal City, an explosion rocked the streets.  The two heroes paused in their transformation to their civilian identities as they and their driver looked back.

Carrington Towers was now ablaze.

"Now THAT was the last booby trap," Peter declared.

Stephen nodded grimly.  "And the last hope of anyone finding any evidence of anything going on."  He sighed.  "Which probably is for the best."

Peter looked over at Stephen.  "So. We have just announced to a super powerful enemy that we don't like them, that we are coming after them, but we cant track them down, and we don't have a clue where to find them anymore. Why do I feel like we won the battle but lost the war?"

"We didn't lose the war."  Stephen looked at the burning building, one more reminder that there were foes not even superheroes could stop.  "This was just the opening salvo.  The real war is yet to come."

"Ever wish we were out of a job?"

"Oh, only about once or twice an hour."  Stephen leaned against the corner of the rear seat and rubbed his temples.  "But since we're not…take us home, Moe.  There's a lot of work left to do."

The cab pulled onto the 14th Street bridge and joined the crush of commuters all heading home.

THE END


End file.

Shadow, Adventure, Drama